Unintended Consequences

Chapter 5: The Raid

After taking his leave of Professor Dumbledore, Snape walked down the spiral staircase and out into the halls of Hogwarts. He had to resist an urge to pinch himself...surely he would find he had dozed off over a cauldron in the back of Madam Sophronia's after his sleepless night. Most importantly, he had secured Dumbledore's help to foil the night's raid. He had refused even to consider the possibility of failure, but it was nonetheless a huge relief. The sense of unreality, however, came more from the final development in the conversation. He was not now in the custody of a pair of Aurors, bound for some white-walled holding cell in a subbasement of the Ministry of Magic. Instead, he was now working on their side, if unofficially.

With these thoughts, he reached the gates of the school, and Apparated back to Knockturn Alley. As he turned in to the narrow passageway between Madam Sophronia's and the second-hand shop next door, he recalled suddenly that he had not bothered to inform his employer of his final, and longest, absence of the day. There hadn't seemed any point to it, as he had been certain he would not be coming back. However, if his room and board was not going to be provided by the Office of Magical Law Enforcement, he needed his job.

He opened the back door quietly, casting a quick Silencio on the squeaky hinges before they could announce his return. His precaution was in vain, however.

"Severus!" shouted Madam Sophronia, placing her left fist on her hip and glowering down at him from the stool on which she was standing. "What are you playing at? You've been in and out all day." She waved the long-handled spoon with which she had been stirring the Veritaserum antidote at the door for emphasis as she spoke, splattering him with the potion. Wiping the drops off his face, Snape noted with chagrin that it had gone from the lime green color he had achieved earlier to a sickly puce that was decidedly not the color of any stage of the correctly made potion.

"Now you disappeared for almost two hours, without even telling me," his employer continued. Thrusting the spoon in his direction, she added, "You know this potion needs regular stirring in this phase! The shop has been very busy, so I have not been able to do it, not to mention that I had no idea you weren't doing it. I am trying to salvage this batch since I have a free moment, but it is going to take hours to put straight after your neglect. Moreover, we're out of Pepper-Up Potion. It must be the cold spell that is bringing in the customers."

She stopped, to take a breath, Snape supposed, as she had not paused for a moment during her tirade. Snape looked up at her, unsure what to say. She was right, his neglect of his duties was inexcusable in an employee. He would never have contemplated such an action under less serious circumstances. They weren't exactly circumstances he could introduce to explain himself, though.

'Well, what have you to say for yourself?" she demanded, frustrated by his lack of response. "Give me one good reason I should not simply give you the sack!"

"I can put that antidote back to rights, and get more Pepper-Up Potion brewed tonight," Snape offered.

"Humph. How do you like that, no apologies," Sophronia said in a more natural speaking voice. "But I suppose you can, at that," she added with a hint of a smile, setting down the spoon. "See that you do."

"Yes, Ma'am," Snape muttered, extending a hand to help her down from the stool. She swept out, leaving him to his work, as the front door opened, admitting yet another customer.

Getting the Veritaserum antidote back on track had to be his first priority. He needed to meet Bellatrix and the rest of her team in a mere five hours. If he didn't have it past the finicky lime-green stage and on towards the amber phase, it would deteriorate again in his absence.

Resignedly, he picked up the spoon and started stirring the potion. It was going to be a tedious few hours. He estimated he could get it close enough to where he needed it to be so he could get a start on the Pepper-Up potion as well before he had to leave. If, that is, he didn't make a single error.

He needed to forget the events of the last twenty-four hours. What would happen later tonight was beyond his control at present. Closing his eyes, he cleared his mind of all extraneous thoughts, replacing each memory with an image of the potion he was working on. When he felt calmer, he reopened his eyes to watch his progress. For the next three hours, he paid strict attention to his work and forgot all of his worries. He was startled out of this near trance to find Madam Sophronia at his elbow, trying for a peek at the potion.

"It'll be ready for the pickled livers in no time!" she exclaimed admiringly. "You sure have a nice hand with the potions, Severus. Well, I've closed up the shop and I'll be leaving. Don't forget to lock up when you are finished."

"I will," Snape responded. "Good evening."

"Good evening," Madam Sophronia said with a wave as she bustled out the back door.

In another hour, as he had expected, the potion began to stabilize. Carefully, he measured out the proper quantity of pickled livers from the jar his employer had left out on the workbench, and watched with satisfaction as the color began to change to pale amber. The color would deepen over the next several days, but the potion would no longer require regular attention.

Quickly, he set up a second cauldron and started to toss in the ingredients for the cold medicine. He really needed more time than he had left, but the prize if he somehow won the race against time would be worth the effort. He knew he really would not want to have to drag himself back to the shop after he was done with the failed raid, an after-action meeting with a doubtless angry Dark Lord, and a quick trip to Hogsmeade to check his post office box. He worked with a will, stirring rapidly and tossing in ingredients with abandon. Fortunately, it was one of the more forgiving recipes. With five minutes to spare, the potion was ready.

Quickly he Vanished the mess he had made in his haste and locked up the shop. He conjured a mask and put up his hood before Apparating outside of the barn.

"Glad you could make it," Bellatrix said sarcastically as Snape walked in. "What, a sack of flour attacked you on your way here?" Looking down, Snape realized he had forgotten about his black robes, which were dusted with powdered Potions ingredients in a variety of pale colors. He could feel his face heating under his mask, but he kept his movements slow as he Vanished the mess with a single nonverbal spell.

"Merely a late night on the job, Bellatrix, not that you would know about that," he replied smoothly.

She looked as if she wanted to make some further retort, but then appeared to think better of it. Instead, she commanded one of the others to produce a layout of the property where the Potters were living, and began to outline her plan of attack. She had relegated him to the backup team, he saw. No surprise there. Since Lucius had suggested him for the job, she would want to make sure he was where he had little chance of achieving anything. Of course, he smiled inwardly as he listened to her orders, tonight, none of them would be winning any glory...

"Very well, you have your orders," Bellatrix concluded her briefing. "We will now all Portkey to the rendezvous point. I don't want the noise of anybody's botched Apparition alerting them. Anyone who makes a sound will regret it." A threat of substance - among the Death Eaters it was rumored that her Cruciatus Curse was second only to the Dark Lord's.

The group gathered around the empty bottle of Firewhisky Bellatrix indicated, and grabbed onto it at her command. Abruptly, Snape felt a most alarming sensation of being pulled upwards, navel-first, into a swirling, howling maelstrom of light. His fingers felt as if they had fused with the bottle. Then, he felt as if he were falling, and felt himself land awkwardly in the grass. Hastily he stood back up and looked around. He could see the house over the hedge behind which they all had landed. Lights in the ground floor were still on, casting a cheerful yellow glow. Snape watched from behind the hedge as one of the three members of the specialist team cast an anti-Apparition jinx and Floo-Blocking Curse on the area in preparation for the attack, to ensure the victims could not get away, except on foot. Pairs of Death Eaters Disillusioned one another and crept off to surround the property from all four sides, to cut off even that possibility of escape. Snape and his partner stayed behind, with orders to join any party that seemed to need extra assistance, until the rest of the teams had made it into the house.

Finally, Bellatrix and her partner headed for the house. They burst through the door, planning to scare those within into fleeing to the unseen watchers outside. However, no sound of running or shouting resulted.

"Everyone in!" Bellatrix commanded, furious. Snape and his partner joined the others. "Search the house from top to bottom. Remember, Potter is an expert at Transfiguration!"

Snape headed up the stairs. The first door he opened was to the master bedroom. A large bed with a pine headboard stood at the far end. A pair of his fellow Death Eaters pushed past him and strode over to the bed, blasting it out of the way to check whether anyone was hiding underneath, before reducing it to splinters to make sure it wasn't one of the Potters Transfigured into a bed. Snape heard wood splintering as they moved on to the matching wardrobe in the corner.

His own eyes were drawn to a small dressing table and matching upholstered chair, which could plainly not hide anybody. On it lay a single sheet of pale pink notepaper, with hastily scrawled notes in a hand he recognized all too well. He folded the note up and tucked it away, just as a spell shattered the mirror above the table. Casting a hasty spell of his own to deflect the shards of glass, Snape turned angrily on the caster of the spell.

"Idiot! What was that for?" he demanded.

"It is big enough that it could have been the baby," the man answered angrily, turning his own wand on Snape. Snape shook his head disgustedly pushed past him to go find Bellatrix. The contents of the note were bringing back the sense of elated relief he had felt earlier that afternoon. Dumbledore was, it appeared, a cunning wizard...the Potters had left, and it would appear to the Dark Lord to have been merely an unfortunate coincidence.

Bellatrix was overseeing the search from the sitting room downstairs. One of the three specialists was speaking with her. Apparently, they were discussing the possibility of more elaborate uses of Transfiguration to create a hidden chamber. He waited for a pause in their conversation, but none seemed forthcoming. After a few minutes, as Bellatrix seemed to be ignoring him, Snape decided to interrupt.

"I don't think they are here, Bellatrix," Snape said quietly. She and the other Death Eater turned to look at him.

"How can you be so sure? You may despise Potter, but he's a crack wizard in Transfiguration," she said dismissively.

"Well, the Mudblood knows her Potions," Snape countered. The word tasted bitter on his lips, but he forged on. "I found this upstairs in the bedroom, left out on her dressing-table. It is a remedy for a minor magical skin ailment - the dosage listed would be considerably under strength for an adult. Underlined below is the phrase Dragon Pox. If they suspected the baby had Dragon Pox, and not a simple rash, they would take him straight to St. Mungo's. It can be quite serious in babies if not treated aggressively."

"You sound very sure of this," said the specialist skeptically. Snape ignored the question and looked pointedly at Bellatrix.

"On matters related to Potions, he will have his facts straight," Bellatrix conceded.

"Nobody left the house this evening? You are sure?" Bellatrix inquired, turning to a man standing behind her.

"As I said, Bella. A young witch came to visit at around six, left a bit before eight, and then nothing. All three of the Potters saw her off when she left, nobody has come or gone since," he replied.

"They could have Flooed," the unknown Death Eater suggested, walking towards the brick fireplace. He drew his wand out, and took a pinch of Floo powder out of a vase on the mantelpiece. As he muttered an incantation, he made a few elaborate passes of his wand before he tossed the powder into the fireplace. A vague green flash appeared, which he seemed to study intently for a few moments as it faded.

Turning back to Bellatrix, he opined, "Two people Flooed out a few seconds apart, maybe two, maybe three hours ago."

"Everybody downstairs!" she shouted. Obedient to her orders, everyone trooped back into the sitting room. She sent six of them back outside to watch for anyone coming to the house, Snape among them.

Disillusioning himself again, he walked outside to his assigned post. Standing alone in the dark, he wondered how long Bellatrix would mess about before admitting to herself that the raid had been a complete failure. The thought that this failure was in large part due to his own actions gave him a thrill of satisfaction. Soon the Potters would be hiding somewhere else. Voldemort might set his mysterious spy to ferret out the new location, but there was no guarantee he would succeed. Also, now that the danger was made manifest, the Potters would be more careful.

As the reality of his success sank in, Snape felt a return of the almost giddy feeling of relief he had experienced upon leaving Dumbledore's office that afternoon. To pass the time, Snape reran the night's events in his mind, with an emphasis on facts and suppositions that might be the most useful to Dumbledore. The man watching the house has been Rodolphus Lestrange, Snape felt reasonably sure, he had recognized the voice. So he was a Death Eater as well, Snape mused. Not at all surprising, given that he was Bellatrix's husband. Probably his younger brother Rabastan, too, was one of those present. It would make sense for him to be a member of Bellatrix's team as well; the two brothers had been inseparable from one another, and from Bellatrix, at school, Snape recalled.

More useful could be to figure out who the three additional Death Eaters were. The one who had cast the anti-Apparition jinx and verified the Potters had Flooed out was most interesting. His knowledge of specialized magic relating to travel and communication suggested he was at the very least Ministry-trained, if not a current Ministry employee. All three were men - the one he had not heard speak was half a head taller than Snape and considerably wider.

As Snape strove to recall any details of their manner that might help others to identify them, his thoughts were interrupted. The Dark Mark on his left forearm burned, indicating he was again summoned to Lord Voldemort's side. Hastily, Snape strode back to the point where the team had arrived by Portkey. It ought to be past the limits of the anti-Apparition jinx, in the event Bellatrix had not yet ordered it removed. He was alone, he noticed with some disquiet; either the others had Apparated from where they stood, or the summons was for him alone. Focusing on the Dark Lord's summons, he Disapparated.